Darken the Horizon
by Farawayland
Summary: What if he still loved her, and what if he told her? My take on the Dark One and Hook meeting on the Jolly Roger. Warnings for slightly dark themes/dark!hook. Parts I and II complete, with a sneak peek of what is to come.
1. You Are My North

_Author's Note: I kept wondering 'what if' as I watched the most recent episode, and wanted to write my story of where things would have gone had Hook said he loved her, and how he could have gotten to that place to begin with._

 _This is Part I. The second half will examine what is going through the Dark One's mind. Warnings for slightly dark themes/Dark!Hook. Reviews and Critiques are always, always welcome. Enjoy! – Fara_

* * *

Killian holds his breath as he descends into the familiar space of his quarters aboard the Jolly Roger, uncertain of whether or not she will be waiting for him. He finds he is disappointed when memories of past deeds are the only thing that greets him. The scent of the cabin is comforting, notes of leather and wood layered upon years of parchment and books and ink. The atmosphere soothes him, his mind recalling memories he hadn't had much need to linger over lately—the raging sea as he clung to the helm, watching as the Dark Curse faded into nothingness only moments before it reached the stern of his ship, his haggard footsteps as he stumbled to his berth, dreams entangled with thoughts of how to get back to her.

 _To his Swan. To his North._

When she startles him, he knows there are still lingering traces of joy in his gaze, his thoughts not having yet released their hold on the past—that moment when she drank the potion and remembered, when he knew all was not lost— _Hook—_ and he'd never been more happy to hear her say his name.

"It's not funny appearing like that."

There is a stirring of guilt in his gut. He should be wary, mistrustful, even, but Gods help him he is nothing but glad to see her, no matter the manner in which she arrived.

"Sorry."

The word sounds foreign falling from her tongue, and he realizes that she has yet to have formed regrets, or missteps. It must be freeing. He can remember a time where he was beyond those ordinary inconveniences, as well. Bloody hell, being this close to her, he could see it again.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"I know this has all been really confusing, and I haven't made it any easier. I wanted to apologize for overreacting last time. I know you're just trying to help. So I thought…we could just talk and have lunch, like old times."

He bites the inside of his lip, her words striking all of the wrong chords. She sounds too much like Emma, but then again, not at all.

"I'd like nothing more, but this is hardly like old times."

It never will be, he realizes as he looks as her, the truth that had been lingering with him for days finally staking claim to his heart. He will never have his Emma back—the Emma who thought of others before herself, who taught him to love again. His heart clenched painfully, and he knew if he didn't let her go, it would shatter right there across the floor of his cabin. Instead, he would cling to the one piece of herself that she had left with him, the ability to love. He would love this new Emma, and perhaps together they could have an ending that he could live with, even if it wasn't happy, because as weak as he was, he couldn't live without _some_ version of her. The decision is quick, and frighteningly easy to make, and he knows it's because he's been considering it for days, ever since that moment in the Dark One's house where she asked for his companionship.

He turns away from her then, dropping the bag of food on the table, and before he can turn back, everything changes. He feels the magic press against his skin, and when he looks down, he sees the familiar sight of a red checked tablecloth, the food arranged on delicate place settings. He waits for his heart to break, but it is curiously void of pain. He hears nothing behind him, but he is keenly aware that if he turns around he will see her dressed as his old Emma—dressed as someone who is never coming back.

It was his last chance. He could look at her, drinking in the illusion as a marooned man fresh water. It would reignite his hope, but with hope came misery and suffering, the long wait for a happy ending he would never get—because he was a villain, and villains don't get happy endings. They got the endings they deserved, and perhaps after hundreds of years bent on vengeance, the ending he deserved was by the Dark One's side. The irony of it all was fitting.

So he didn't turn around, keeping his eyes firmly focused on the corner of the red checked tablecloth.

"Don't." His voice was resolved, but lighter than it had been of late. "Let's leave memories of the past out of this."

The air in the cabin stirred, and he watched as the red checked cloth disappeared, leaving instead the knotted wood of his table, the food once again bagged.

He turned to her then, taking in the pale blonde hair smoothed tightly into an elegant bun, the curious tilt to her lips as she watched him. The dress he knew she was cloaked in only a moment before was thankfully gone, replaced with the severe black leather tunic she seemed to favor.

He didn't go looking for the pain in his heart, knowing that the burden had vanished with his new path laid out before him—standing before him. He took the few steps toward her that would close the distance between them, his hand reaching to take hers, studying his rings against the pale white of her skin.

"I have questions."

She didn't remove her hand from his, but her eyes shifted upward, meeting his, a moment of indecision reflected in their green depths.

"You don't want to know if I'm still the same Emma?"

"I already know that you're not. I don't care. I want to know why you're here, on my ship."

There was a long moment of silence, and he tightened his grip. Her eyes flashed with something he couldn't place, but he didn't ease up. If she wanted Hook, she was going to get all of him, Dark One or no, because Killian couldn't love this woman, but Hook could.

"I have a question for you for once."

Her voice was frustratingly opaque, giving him no hint as to what type of answer she might expect.

"Do you love me?"

The Savior had loved the good in him, the long-forgotten morality of a young Lieutenant. She had stolen his heart and pulled him from the shadows. She had been his North, and therein lay the problem. His North was fluctuating, depending entirely on Emma, and now that she was gone, his North had changed.

The only thing left of it was the Dark One, and the one person she could love was the feral pirate, the man who plundered, schemed and ripped apart anything in his way. She was who he had left to him now, his new North, and so he would return to the shadows with her, and take love where he could.

"Aye."

"I need something that touched Rumplestiltskin when he was still a man. You knew him then. You can help me."

Hook didn't think anything of retrieving the cutlass from the shelf, it was what she needed. He held the blade against her cheek, a cold glimmer in the blue of his eyes as he spoke.

"I took this cutlass and put it to his head and taunted him. I'm assuming this will work, though he wasn't much of a man at that moment either, love."

It was surprising to him how quickly Killian slipped away, the guilt and sorrow lessening with each word that fell from his lips.

She raised an elegant hand, her wrist twisting before his eyes, and the cutlass disappeared in a cloud of grey smoke, his hand empty. He had the sudden urge to fill it, and so he did. His fingers found the pins in her hair easily enough, skillfully plucking them from her braids as she turned into him, her hands pressed into the edge of the table behind her, her eyes, dark and filled with desire, meeting his own.

She raised her hand again, and he was suddenly afraid that she would magic her hair into something he didn't want to see, something gold and beautiful, so he stopped her, his hook catching her wrist in midair and bringing it to his hip.

"Don't," he said firmly, tossing another pin to the ground. "If I'm going to have you—and I will. I want you just the way you are, no trickery."

He watched as her silver hair fell in waves around her shoulders, elegantly framing the smooth, pale expanse of her cheeks, her green eyes watching him like two moss-lined pools in the snow, ice gathering at their edges. She was beautiful when she was undone.

He lingered for only a moment, wanting to _feel_ something more than he wanted to memorize her, his lips finding hers with a brutality he had forgotten he possessed. She met him eagerly, her leg winding around his as she pressed fiercely into him, the leather they both wore an unwanted barrier.

She scratched her fingers roughly down the exposed skin of his chest before entwining them around his necklace, yanking his face to her neck. He nipped the sensitive skin at her throat roughly, the moan he drew from her lips making him throb painfully. He needed to be inside of her.

Something between a growl and a cry left his lips, and he found himself spinning her around forcefully, his left forearm pressing her roughly into the table, his hand moving to jerk her hips upward. He swore he could hear both of their hearts racing together, the air practically humming with unchecked need. Savoring the moment, the Dark One spread before him on the table, he set about solving the problem of that infuriating leather armor she chose to wear, his hook tearing down the back of her leather jacket before moving to her leggings. He didn't care if he damaged her—knowing that _this_ Emma could handle those dangerous parts of him, the parts that took without caring.

Once he had her bared to him, her body shivering on the table, her breath coming in small, muted gasps, he moved his fingers to sweep against her center, the wet warmth of her calling out to him, begging for him to answer her need. He didn't bother with niceties, there would be more than enough time for that later—now, he simply needed to make her his, to claim her with all of the wild ferocity she had turned him back to.

The world around them seemed to still and shudder as he sheathed himself inside of her, their voices coming together in breathless abandon at the pure ecstasy of being joined. Before he had a chance to come back down from the moment, she was already pushing against him, her fingers digging into the tabletop as she strove toward him. He began to move then, long, punishing strokes that drove her body into the edge of the table, _Hook_ falling from her lips over and over as he took her. Groaning wildly, he sought the tight bundle of nerves between her legs that he knew would be her undoing, sweeping his fingers roughly across it until she released, her muscles clenching around him.

In that moment, her nubile body writhing against him, pulling every last bit of his essence into her, he knew he was ruined.


	2. You are My Quiet Moment

She could sense him, his very existence in the world a thrumming vibration in the web that was her power, constantly causing her to refocus, a small part of her mind always caught up in watching him. She knew the instant he stepped foot in his cabin, and after allowing him a moment to linger, to anticipate, she went to him, invisible threads of power snapping in her mind as she was transported from one place to another.

She has only a second to study him, to pull the scent from his skin, a familiar mix of leather and salt, and then he has turned to her. The surprise is easy enough to read on his face. He has become…something of an open book to her. There is something else though, something lingering between the shock and guilt, a thing that is not so easily defined, and she feels a momentary sense of rage as the foreign emotion taunts her. It subsides quickly at the sound of his voice.

"It's not funny appearing like that."

"Sorry."

She's not sorry. She can't explain that it is easier to move this way, to shift the strings of existence around her rather than to walk down the street…as if she were an ordinary person.

"What's going on?"

His eyes are the same disquieting blue surrounded by smudges of black, and though his stance is angled away from her, he keeps his stare locked on hers. There is a shimmer of apprehension in her chest when she notices the change. There is something behind them—these are not the same eyes of the man she tried to seduce. That man was searching for something within her, this man is not. She is uncertain if there is any consequence to this observation, and discards it as momentarily unimportant. The intent behind her visit remains unchanged.

She stills her mind, immediately _knowing_ what she needs to say and do to earn his trust, understanding the balance. Everything is clearer—sharper—to her now than it ever was before.

"I know this has all been really confusing and I have not made it any easier."

The words are flat, and she adjusts, adding a sympathetic inflection to her voice. The taste of it is foreign on her tongue.

"I wanted to apologize for overreacting last time. I know you're just trying to help, so I thought we could just…talk and have lunch, like old times."

She sees the small tick in his jaw, the stubble along the angles of his face shifting. The center of her pulls tightly, her magic humming pleasantly within her as it sometimes does in his presence—as it had when he kissed her. She enjoys the sensation. It is the only moment during her ceaseless existence when the web of power she moves within, the strings of cause and effect, blur and soften—it is the only time she feels something akin to rest.

 _A quiet moment._

"I'd like nothing more, but this is hardly like old times."

He turns away from her then, and everything in the cabin, the air itself, vibrates sharply into focus. She sees the individual strands that shape her path forward, the means to liberation.

 _Gain his trust._

She pulls, and the web of magic shifts, wrenching echoes from another time and place into the cabin. She watches him take in the emptiness of his hand, the corner of the checked cloth on a table that was, only seconds earlier, bare. Her eyes study the tension in his muscles, the immediate stiffening of his shoulders beneath leather. Discord strums at the web of magic around her, but she waits. He will turn around. Like the rest of them, he is vulnerable because of his sentimentality.

With a soft breath, the tension in his shoulders releases, and he speaks.

She hears the words— _don't. Let's leave the memories of the past out of this—_ turns them over in her head, catalogues them, and then watches as her meticulous strategy falls apart, the sharp web of magic that she lives within reweaving itself to accommodate a different future. Cause and effect.

His words had changed _everything._

She pushes—relieved that he is still facing away, unable to notice the slight tremor in the movement of her fingers—and the cabin shifts, returning to its original state, echoes from the past returning to where they belong.

The strands of magic—of time, and existence—are still resettling from their drastic transformation as he turns to her. His eyes are taking her in then, roving over her body with interest, and it strikes her for the second time. They are not the eyes of a man searching for something within her. It is the first time in this realm that someone met her eyes without trying to find the scarred, judgmental, weak foundation she had been built on—without trying to find _Emma_.

She did not move when he approached her, merely watching with interest as he lifted her hand in his. His fingers were rough, time-worn—and if she focused enough, she could sense all of the blood that still clung to them, hundreds of years of violence did not wash off so easily as one might think.

"I have questions."

His eyes were still open when she met them, no emotions such as guilt, or sorrow, swimming in their depths. He accepted her. She could feel it, sense it as easily as the darkness he harbored in his heart, but was that acceptance enough of a reason to _trust_ him, to change her plan so drastically?

"You don't want to know if I'm still the same Emma?"

"I already know that you're not. I don't care. I want to know why you're here, on my ship."

The words that fell from his lips were truthful without hesitation, and though he did not seem aware of it, his gaze still firmly locked on hers, his thumb was circling slowly against her palm. The omnipresent web around her blurred, losing its bright, hard edges as her magic hummed pleasantly beneath her skin, the white noise of everything she saw and heard so sharply fading into the background.

 _Peace. Rest._

He can give her these things.

She is drawn from her quiet moment when he clenches his fist tightly about her hand, his eyes suddenly seeming as dark and treacherous as open water. Her clarity returns, everything overlaid with sharp, crossing strands she cannot blink away, and they show her the path she must take to succeed.

"I have a question for you for once."

She pauses. Needing to know does not make it any easier for her to ask.

"Do you love me?"

She is not sure what answer she desires. Her memories of love are…incompatible with who she has become.

"Aye. I love you."

She hesitates to let go, to forsake the advantage by trusting another, but the thought of being able to reclaim some quiet moments with him at her side is tempting—and she knows that she has to trust him, it is the price.

"I need something that touched Rumplestiltskin when he was still a man. You knew him then. You can help me."

His hand is pulled from hers, and a small muscle in her jaw twitches as the world becomes painfully sharp, but he returns swiftly, the cold steel of a blade pressed to her cheek. He surprises her, and the sensation is disconcerting.

"I took this cutlass and put it to his head and taunted him. I'm assuming this will work, though he wasn't much of a man at that moment either, love."

 _Yes_.

She raises a single hand in the air and twists, invisible strands pulling the cutlass to the place it will be most useful to her. She is still considering the changes that having an ally will cause when she feels the pirate's fingers moving through her hair. His touch, working into her tightly spun braids, stirs something in her blood, a deep-seated need that boils to the surface. She turns into him, her hands gripping the edge of the table as she meets his gaze.

His eyes are lit with something dark and desperate, a desire of the flesh, and she raises her hand, eager to finish his work so they can move on to more gratifying pursuits. The unyielding chill of his hook around her wrist stops her, and his words are absolute.

"Don't. If I'm going to have you—" He tosses another pin to the ground, the fingers left tangled in her hair his last obstruction. "—and I will. I want you just the way you are, no trickery."

She holds his gaze as he lets go, her hair tumbling around her shoulders, free in a way she had not allowed it to be—but the world around her is fading into obscurity, the pirate the only solid anchor in a blissful sea of muted edges.

When he crashes into her she cannot find the end of him, his being seeming to leach into every dark corner of her mind, devouring any separation between them. She wraps her leg around him to stop the feeling—he is here, he is only human. His kiss is forceful and unyielding. He takes. She presses her body against him, tempted to magic away the barriers between them, but cautious of doing anything that would pull him away from her and let the world back in.

Suddenly the pace is not enough, and she tears away from the kiss, dragging her nails down his chest until she reaches the charms nestled at the button of his shirt. She wraps her hand tightly around them and pulls, moaning as his teeth take hold of the fluttering pulse at her neck.

She opens her eyes, desire bringing a hard edge to every facet of him, and when he opens his mouth, it is the noise of a hungry, wild thing that escapes. She doesn't have time to react, all sense of control gone as she is twisted and shoved onto the table, the air forced from her lungs in a painful, choking burn. Her skin is on fire, and when he presses the full weight of his upper body into her, pinning her down, her magic boils in every vein, feral and threatening to tear her apart.

She is lost within it, the consuming blend of power and desire leaving her floating in a blissful sea of nothingness. It is the burning steel of his hook tearing through her clothing that brings her back to him, her skin tingling from where he has scored her, the sensation as fleeting as the wounds to her flesh. The touch of his fingers against her slick folds is enough to make her body tremble, everything within her a knot of tension begging for release—a snake poised to strike.

Everything slows when he enters her, the tumultuous cadence that was her breath, the scrape of her nails against wood, the drag of his cock within her heated center. For the first time, she sees nothing beyond the ordinary—no quivering strands that shift and change with every decision, tethered always to her mind. Every powerful stroke of his body into hers slams her against the table, demanding nothing more than a place to find release.

 _Hook._

She does not realize she has been crying his name, the word falling from her lips in a chant as he drives deeply into her, every cell in her body clinging desperately to his. The moment his rough fingers glide across that aching, pulsing heart of her—she falls, waves of ecstasy washing over her, drowning all thought from her mind save for the sensation of two bodies coming together.

It is only in this last breathless moment, his body claiming her completely, that she realizes she can't ever let him go—and for the first time, the Dark One knows fear.

* * *

 _Author's Note: I have decided to continue this thread of an idea a bit farther, so I've included a quick drabble below that puts into words some of the thoughts I have been having on its direction. I want to give it some time to come to me properly, so I won't be rushing to finish it, which is why I've included the sneak peek below. As always, I hope you enjoyed reading, and would love to hear your thoughts/critiques in that lovely little review box below. -Fara_

 ** _Sneak Peek:_**

 _Hook was able to vaguely remember a time when he looked to the night sky for guidance, each glowing fleck a beacon leading him forward. In this place, though, they were as much a captive as he, forever prevented from reaching their inevitable end. The surf rushed in, licking the heated skin of his body and infusing the warm sand beneath him with a welcome chill._

 _This was a quiet moment in between, one of the few times when he remembered that there was a world beyond the two of them, their bodies flowing together as seamlessly as the waters of the sea. Well, there had been a world. He could still see it in those moments when he dreamt—distant places, a field of clouds, and a sheer wall of something cold—ice, he thinks. He remembered time, but he supposed a lot of the things he remembered were long gone by now. Perhaps the rest of the world had met its end as well._


End file.
